Elfin Lied

         Cricket, cricket. The sound seemed literally to fill the air, this night. All around, the chirp-chirping of grasshoppers and the like. The wind softly stirred, adding to the noise by singing through the leaves and rustling up the grass - and whatever bugs lie inside. The two sounds together were about all there was, aside from the occasional creak of a limb, the hoot of an owl. The baying of a wolf. All of the typical sounds to rile the hackles up anyone's back. The night was alive, and it was out for blood! To the common ear.

Luna was full and red in the sky, casting a dim glow upon the ground that was, while not enough to see by, enough to make one think they could see. The slender sliver of Sola was also visible, much lower in the sky than Luna. It did not even produce enough light to cast a shadow. It was enough to illuminate the trees, a thicket of them that seemed to press upon the slender cobbled path oppressively. To a tiny half-elf walking along that path, it seemed the trees loomed over her maliciously. She peered into them intermittently, seeing, or perhaps imagining, glowing spheres of creatures staring at her.

Melissa could see, for the most part, fairly well, despite the late hour. Her glowing elven eyes seemed to pierce the darkness more easily than the average eye, but if anything it did not help alleviate the scariness of the nighttime, only exasperating it. The stark, monochromatic view was horrifying to one who had not been out in it often. Yes, Melissa was still fairly new to this whole fly-by-night musician thing, but she had been on the road consistently for over a month now. She was beginning to harden against the terrifying nature of the night.

Really, the scary part was that all she had to go by was a worn, torn, hand-drawn map that she was beginning to think was very inaccurate. She had not brought a light with her, fearing that it would only attract the attention of less scrupulous than she was. The fact that the half-elf was completely unarmed did not help assuage the tension she felt in her back. She felt unseen eyes peering at her from all around, though she was fairly sure she was alone.